Masters latest: Irish optometrist Matthew McClean can't believe eyes after flying start

The Belfast amateur joked he wanted a screenshot of the early leaderboard.

Matthew McClean, of Northern Ireland, watches his putt from off the green on the sixth hole. Picture: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

It took a bit for things to start heating up in the first round of the Masters on Thursday. For the first 90 minutes of the tournament, the only player to even touch red figures was Northern Ireland amateur Matthew McClean, who birdied the first and fourth holes – two of the most difficult on the course – to post his name atop the leaderboards.

“I was joking, I was saying after 4, I would take a screenshot of the leaderboard there, leading the Masters,” said the 29-year-old optometrist from Belfast. “I felt fine. … Obviously I wasn't thinking that I was going to shoot 6-, 7-under. I was just trying to play each hole. But, yeah, I'm sort of happy with sort of how I felt right there the whole way around, even when I was 2-under.”